Tag: Historical Fiction

A Brush with Lady Lavender

Title: Lady Lavender: A Regency Love novel
Author: Samantha Lin
First Published Independently by Amazon KDP
Year: 2019
Format Read: Kindle
Pages: 368
Language: English
ASIN: B082RSMY8T
Dates Read: 2026, January 31 to March 30

Introduction
I liked the Regency Love game that debuted in 2013 for iOS. I found out about it from an rpgfan.com review. I completed routes with the three main bachelors. Like many fans, I was hoping for additional routes and more content updates. I have not touched the game since 2017, but it doesn’t feel like it has been that long ago! The game developers’ blog mentioned that a book was published that served as a standalone spin-off novel to the video game. I just never got around to reading it until now. Apparently, I did not follow the developers that closely, so I missed everything about how this novel was produced. Fans could have raised more money and got more chapters or an epilogue.

I had to go online and consult the game’s wiki to refresh my memory of some of the characters’ names and faces. In this book, your player character from the game is married to Mr. Ashcroft. His sister, Ellie, along with Lord Sutton — the character introduced in Mr. Graham’s route — serve as the protagonists of this story. Skillfully, the author is able to reintroduce characters from the game into the novel and weave backstory into the dialogue and exposition. The novel is divided into 3 volumes and contains a total of 45 chapters. Each chapter seems to alternate between the perspectives of the two protagonists. The author mostly writes similar to the style of the video game and generally follows the conventions of a Regency novel.

The following paragraphs contain major plot spoilers.

Noteworthy
I loved how the narrator incorporated characters, settings, and events from the game into the novel. A nice reunion! I also admired that, for the most part, it did feel like I was reading a Regency era historical romance.

Honestly, I had avoided spoilers about this novel. Therefore, I did not really know what this novel was going to be about other than it had something to do with art and two characters from the video game as the main characters. Also, it did not register with me until Chapter 7 that the writer was developing a romantic relationship between Lord Sutton and Ellie Ashcroft. Up until that point, Lord Sutton had felt more like a father figure to me. I had assumed that he would only serve as Ellie’s mentor or assist her in some platonic way. I also had this fatherly notion when I played James Graham’s route in the video game. Lord Sutton is a landowner with many responsibilities, and his character portrait made him seem like an old-world count (Dracula-like) and very mature. Despite my initial misconceptions, I came to enjoy the growing relationship between him and Miss Ashcroft, and I was very happy when he finally proposed marriage. I would have loved an epilogue for them and the other characters. However, there is a free Christmas short story that takes place 7 months after the novel, which, at the time of writing, is free to read on the developer website.

It was fascinating to read about how people related to or pursued an interest in art during the Regency era. I appreciated the novel’s emphasis on the artistic world. The story went into detail about Ellie as a budding artist, her influences, style, and techniques as well as Lord Sutton’s involvement with sketches and the broader art world in general.

Reading about the day-to-day lives of the characters was actually satisfying and enjoyable to me. I was able to learn more about Ellie’s daily life, her perspective, her desires, and her relationships. I got to discover more about the mysterious Lord Sutton, his servants, his estate, and his dealings with his tenants. The author includes a great deal of detail about types of food, dress, and what was happening in the characters’ world of Regency England. I loved reading about how the main couple gradually developed feelings for one another. The camaraderie between Lord Sutton and Lieutenant Graham was admirable, and I enjoyed the dialogue between the two friends. 

Grievous
Major barriers kept me from enjoying this book as much as I had hoped.  As a reader, there were elements that just didn’t do it for me at all. First, I am starting to really enjoy this book, but then a new character is introduced named Mrs. Evans. It’s revealed in the narration that Lord Sutton has an ongoing friendship with this lady from a lower class.  She works as an art model for him, and the two have engaged in a sexual relationship in the past. Nothing of this sexual sort happens during the events of the novel itself, but the revelation of this history, somewhat ruined my view of his character. Given his portrayal in the chapters before this, I thought that the author wanted us to view him as someone more morally restrained and upright — skeptical of most women, prideful, but guided by a sense of duty and quiet virtue. I thought the writer was going for a more coherently principled, although still flawed, masculinity. Also, introducing the scene with Mrs. Evans sort of jolted me out of this time period. Realistically, shouldn’t a woman have a chaperone going into a Lord’s home like this? Why didn’t the servants say anything about a lower class woman in the lord’s studio without anyone else present? The scene was framed as tastefully routine and benign, but going by the historical time period, wouldn’t this be scandalous – dangerous for her reputation and distasteful? It’s just odd because he does act morally severe, restrained, emotionally guarded, shaped by duty and class expectations during the rest of the novel.

I have such fond memories of the character routes in the video game. In this novel, I absolutely hated what happened to Lieutenant Graham.  I understand that in the novel, he fights in one of the bloodiest campaigns, and the author was trying to depict historical realism. However, I was still shocked that the writer makes him lose an arm. So basically, the only image I have of him from the game as a dashing, sensible redcoat has been fractured. He loses a major part of his identity — a soldier. And the novel doesn’t really give him time to develop another sense of identity. When I think about it, he actually had already undergone significant character development in the game, and he was a great supporting character in this novel. Was this drastic outcome in the story really necessary for his character?

Another aspect of this novel that didn’t work well for me is the portrayal of the romantic relationship that develops between Lieutenant Graham and Ensign Ashcroft. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting this. To me, the story just introduces the relationship abruptly without much buildup. This romance storyline does not receive the same level of development in comparison to the relationship between Ellie and Lord Sutton, or the established friendship between Lord Sutton and Lieutenant Graham, or even the dynamics between Ellie and her brothers. I know that these soldiers are not the novel’s primary focus, but their romance seems ad hoc to the plot. Additionally, I imagine it would be hard to write same-sex love confessions from this historical period, but the dialogue felt modern here, so once again, I felt pulled out of the time period.

Major spoilers have ended.

Overall Impressions
I’m glad that I was finally able to read this book. I liked the main romance, the emphasis on art, the nods to the video game, and many Regency details. However, some narrative choices of scenes or events were questionable to me, and this kept me from enjoying the novel as much as I had enjoyed the game.

Content Advisory
While reading through the novel, I made an effort to note some potential concerns.
Language: One use of d*mn, one use of d*mned, and a couple uses of bl**dy.
Violence: References to the ongoing war and past fighting; mentions of injuries; brief description of before and after an amputation.
Sexual Content: References to nude art modeling and a past sexual relationship; occasional suggestive dialogue.
Substance Use: Frequent consumption of alcoholic beverages and comments regarding the taste.
Grief & Loss: Mentions of death; war trauma.

Notes on Johnny Tremain

Title: Johnny Tremain: A Story of Boston in Revolt
Author: Esther Forbes
Published by Clarion Books
Edition: 75th Anniversary ed. edition (September 11, 2018)
Format Read: Kindle
Pages: 323
Language: English
ASIN: B07FK993XT
First Published by Houghton Mifflin in 1943
Dates Read: 2024, May 30 to June 16

Sometime in 2023, I developed an interest in the 18th century, especially Colonial America. I don’t remember the exact reason why I gained this sudden interest, but it may have to do with how I’m constantly seeing pins on Pinterest of portraits and clothing from those eras. Additionally, I have been trying to find novels about male friendships and adventures.

I remembered hearing about this book in elementary school, but I had never seen the movie. I knew that the novel is a Newbery Award winner. In college, I had to write a paper on the Newbery award. Although I had not read it, I used a line from the book because I needed more primary sources related to my paper’s topic. Also, I knew that there is a song in the movie about a tree that my parents would randomly sing. Finally, I became curious to actually read Johnny Tremain.

In this edition, there is a comic at the beginning that introduces the characters and a brief overview of the novel’s setting. It does not reveal huge spoilers which is helpful for people reading this story for the first time. First of all, the protagonist is much, much different than I thought. Based on my experience with retro media,  I assumed that Johnny was going to be a goody-two-shoes, archetypal, heroic school boy— naive, innocent, and extremely lovable in every way. He may have been a bit like Dick from the Dick and Jane books, the brothers from Leave It to Beaver, or Opie from The Andy Griffith Show. Instead, the boy is so full of pride and angst— angst and pride— he goes back and forth. He is a bit hot-headed, and teases plenty, but he does grow during the course of the novel. 

Since the book was written in the 1940s, and there are black characters, I was expecting the stereotypes to be cringy, and they are, just a little. I thought it was odd that the author used “black” but never “Negro” and seldom “colored”. I assumed in the ‘40s or 1770s colonial era that these were the terms used, and that “Black” wasn’t used regularly until the 1970s, along with “African American.”

I thought there would be some Indigenous characters, even if they were characterized flatly or stereotypically. However, there are none that I recall, but I could have sworn that it was going to be revealed that Rab is part Native American. This is due to the way that he is described with elements like: “dark boy,” “muscular, brown throat,” “teeth look sharp and white,” “calm demeanor,”  and an odd last name, Silsbee, which sounds like a tribe (although the name is of English origin). It’s like the author is trying to hint at something— that he is not completely white—but it’s never stated. Johnny’s immaturity and angst contrasts with Rab’s collected, methodical, cool outlook, and their differences go together well as good friends. To me, the narrator relays Rab as almost perfect. His portrayal throughout the plot and what happens to him at the end of the story displays that he is almost the hero character and an ideal. The way Johnny idolizes Rab, despite some annoyance and jealousy at his actions, and seems to like him more than Cilla, displays such a deep, endearing friendship.

There is actually quite a bit of humor in this story, despite the fact that the plot culminates in a war. I enjoyed the episodic nature of the story and the slice-of-life adventures of Johnny, which saturate the reader in the setting’s world and provide ample characterization. I was especially surprised at the relay of the Boston Tea Party; it was like manual labor, an arduous task, not a feel-good party with dancing and craziness. How much early American history did I forget? The speech against tyranny and what they are trying to do right before the start of “The Scarlet Deluge” chapter definitely reminds me of WWII and other parallels. I liked this book, and I’m glad I finally read it, especially this version— and not the other published book with the boy and blue background. When I read the beginning of that one after finishing this novel, that introduction spoiled the entire novel, so I was happy to find a version to read without many major spoilers. 

Reading A Tale of Two Cities

Title: A Tale of Two Cities
Author: Charles Dickens
Published by e-artnow Editions
Edition Year: 2013
Format Read: Kindle
Pages: 474
Language: English
ASIN: B00GMIM9QC
First Published by Chapman & Hall, in 1859
Dates Read: 2023, February 2 to 24

People rave over this book! The only book I’ve read by Dickens in its entirety is Oliver Twist. I probably should have read more of his works by now, so I decided to give this one a shot. I wanted to watch the movie with Ronald Colman, but it was recommended to read the novel before watching any of the movie versions.

Something cool about this edition is that it has the original pictures from Phiz/H.K. Brown. After reading the famous first line, I struggled to follow some passages of text. I had to reread a few several times. Dialogue is easy to understand, but the narrator’s descriptions can be long and intense. I wonder if this is because I haven’t read 19th century literature in a few years, so I have to readjust to the writing style. Sometimes, I had issues with knowing which character the author was talking about. However, chapters tend to be short (about 10 to 20 minutes to read) which helps. Also, the narrator gradually introduces characters and only focuses on one to a few a chapter which is also helpful. It was interesting to read the descriptions of the miserable conditions with some humor sprinkled throughout the text.

The story’s suspense slowly builds; despite the difficulty reading some sentences, I wanted to continue reading. The story gradually becomes easier and more intriguing to read. The story ends with another famous quote that I would hear, but I had no idea that it was from this book. There were a few side characters that I wish had more of an ending. I liked this novel better than Oliver Twist, but it’s not my favorite novel ever. I look forward to reading other works by Dickens.

Reading The Abbess of Whitby

Title: The Abbess of Whitby: A novel of Hild of Northumbria
Author: Jill Dalladay
Published by Lion Fiction
Year: 2015
Format Read: Kindle
Pages: 380
Language: English
ASIN: B0156O6148
Dates Read: 2023, January 7 to 28

I found this book while browsing for different types of Christian books to read. I wanted to read a biography or historical fiction novel about a nun. Although I was unfamiliar with Hild of Whitby or Northumbria, this book seemed interesting.

The story takes place in 7th century Northumbria. This is a prose novel, but like a play, the author lists virtually all of the characters who will be in the story at the start of the book. She also lists maps, a family tree, and well-titled chapters. All of this detail before the story begins made me wonder if I would be able to keep up with all the details through the story, but it ended up being nothing to worry about. I like Dalladay’s writing style. Many sentences are packed full of detail, unusual words, and read rhythmic like poetry.

All types of events and adventures happen fast: conquests, battles, festivals, riding, etc. Many characters are historical figures, and many events that occur are recorded in history. While Hild is the novel’s main character, many others receive ample attention. I’ve never read a novel with so many historical characters, but thankfully, I was able to keep up. I only confused around 3 characters because they had similar sounding names.

The dynamic in the first part of the novel was the most intriguing to me: King Edwin and his people are pagans. Queen Elthelberga is a Christian from another place whom he married. She came to his kingdom with her own chaplain, monks, and other Christian people. Her chaplain is constantly striving for a Christian influence in the kingdom. Hild is growing up during this time. She, her sister, and mother are handmaidens to the queen and serve the king’s court.

Hild and others have to accept a compulsory baptism. She still prays to older gods and believes in them for years. Eventually, she grows to appreciate the Christian teachings and the monks’ gospel work. The dynamic with her husband and son are so fascinating, deep, and tragic that I was surprised that they were some of the few non-historical characters. By the last part of the book, she is helping to lead a double monastery or mixed community. This was cool to read about. You have people who are a part of the order but lay people as well. They help each other out. It seems like an amazing community with people of different stations. The monks spread literacy, travel to other places, and just seem to have so much peace and joy in life. A lot of people visit as well. They trade scrolls of scripture and enjoy teaching. Hild helps operate the community and the infirmary for the sick. The children help, play, and hunt. Caedmon makes a cameo, and he makes music.

This book was amazing to read, and I loved it. I especially enjoyed reading about the love that the different Christians had for each other and the gospel; this made me feel like I was transported far above the daily grind. I read online that the author passed away in 2019; I would have loved to read more of her books.

Some Quotes:

The chapel looked like a workshop: plain, bare wood, with monks on either side of a cross on a table. The queen knelt, head in hands, soft skirts fanning out in the straw. In a monotone, one group echoing the other, the men chanted softly. Mesmerized, Hild felt herself relax. So this was Ethelburga’s secret. Far from kindred, ill-matched consort of a fierce old warlord, prey to insult and pain, she always shed calm. It came from worshipping her God. There was no climax, none of Thor’s frenzy, no High Priest or sacrifice. The singing simply stopped, leaving an echo in the stillness. Then the monks bustled forward like ordinary men. (pg. 42)

“Erpwald!” Edwin had heard him. “Come and ride with me! About the route…” “Honoured, my lord.” He spurred forward: too eagerly for her liking. He was friendly, funny, and she wanted to know him better. Coifi, the king’s priest, awaited them in a hilltop grove, his white robes shining through the trees. His stance, his stillness, made Hild shudder; someone had told her that, before living memory, Eostre’s maid was herself the spring sacrifice. “Name?” With a start she saw Coifi holding out his arms for the child. “Anfled.” Edwin’s voice rang out. “To Woden’s shrine,” Coifi cried, bearing the baby into the trees. “Follow me!” (pg. 51)

Credo in unum Deum… Surprisingly soon she was, slowly and laboriously, writing the familiar Latin words. I believe in one God… And she really did, she realized with amazement. It had taken an age to shake off Thor and the fear of woods and thunderclaps, but at last she was winning through. Her new God did not mete out erratic punishments. He loved her as his daughter. “The Creed, summary of Christian belief,” Utta explained. “That and Jesus’ model prayer. The two basics.” And with a new clarity she understood why each convert must take them to heart before being baptized. (pg. 253)

Regarding Daughter of Rome

Title: Daughter of Rome
Author: Tessa Afshar
Published by Tyndale House Publishers
Year: 2020
Format Read: Kindle
Pages: 378
Language: English
ASIN: B07T32RZMF
Dates Read: 2022, October 22 to October 30

The book was captivating. Every chapter is an adventure. The character, themes, and touching moments really pack a punch, and there is an edifying sermon every chapter. After reading Thief of Corinth, I wanted to read another book by this author. Priscilla and some others make a cameo appearance in Thief of Corinth. Some characters from that novel are mentioned in Daughter of Rome. I like how Afshar’s novels are somewhat linked, but they are not a series so a person can start with any book. At the start of the novel, I knew why Priscilla was trying to see the physician even before the reason was revealed. This was the only predictable part of the book for me, and the rest of the book was more unforeseeable and engaging. 

The book gave me the impression that it would mainly be about Priscilla, but Aquila seems to have an equal part. They start out as both outcasts from their world who come to find love and acceptance. I love how the book shows that they are partners in ministry.  For some reason, while reading this book, I kept imagining it as an anime. I wish there was an anime like this and relatively clean, popular and made especially for Christians. I especially loved how the story demonstrates Christian characters releasing or overlooking offenses, being able to love, extending hospitality, and showing grace even to some of the most infuriating people. I enjoyed how the story shows both married and single people caring for each other in a community and having deep love, concern, and relationships with each other like adopted siblings.

One scene that I thought that could have been crafted better is when certain characters go to rescue Paul from a kidnapping. The scene reminds me a bit of “The Beggar’s Opera” by John Gay. Also, when the dog Ferox is introduced, I was given the impression that there would be a mysterious path there that would be eventually unraveled. He’s a mysterious dog that shows up out of nowhere. He saves Priscilla and is a part of the family but there’s no unraveling or discovery of his origins like there is for the orphan Marcus. Sometimes, to me, the romance scenes were very passionate and a bit more descriptive than I anticipated or thought necessary. Also, who gets her brother’s “estate” at the end or does it go to creditors? The book is a great read overall, and I look forward to reading Afshar’s other works.